Two Malls Tell the Tale of Venezuelan Capital Flight

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/07/3612845/two-malls-tell-a-tale-of-venezuelan.html

Mall was expropriated by Hugo before it even opened. Now being used as a shelter for Ven internally displaced refugees.
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Before a single product was sold, the mall became one of the more than 1,000 businesses and properties Chávez expropriated during his 14 years as president.

Four and a half years later, the mall-that-wasn’t takes up an entire city block. It’s cordoned off from the public for most of the year. Since the seizure, its parking garage has seen service as a makeshift shelter for Venezuelans who have lost their homes to flooding. Designed to uplift a decaying neighborhood, its brick and granite façades are covered by a mosaic of murals marred with graffiti and campaign slogans.

Compare that to a $200-million sister mall in the Dominican Republic — built by the same Venezuelan developer, Sambil.

When it opened earlier this year off a busy highway in the capital of Santo Domingo, President Danilo Medina cut the ribbon. With a 16,000-square-foot indoor aquarium, a grocery store, movie theater and 325 shops, this Sambil mall is thriving.

[Socialistlemur]

1. I visited Caracas a few years ago and I saw that mall

Caracas has a few giant eyesores right in the middle of the city. When I visited (I no longer do so because its too dangerous), I used to go to poor areas because I was assigned the responsibility to understand the poor people's needs, this allowed us to direct our social spending. The downtown Sambil was used as a refuge for poor people, so I tried to visit it. I was warned not to go so I went over with two guys I knew who were friends of Lina Ron, a local red activist. These guys gave me a shield because Lina Was very respected within the outlaw population.

Anyway, I only got in front of the building because my two buddies were scared of getting closer. And the place was an incredible mess. They had people living in levels above the street (I don't know if this was the parking garage), and they tossed garbage and pails of dirty water right onto the sidewalk. It was medieval. I talked to a shop owner a block away and he said the Sambil residents had terrorized the neighborhood, but it was possible to stay in business paying off several local gang leaders who served as an informal vigilante system. It was a crazy set up so I left and went back to donating money to schools and orphanages in Petare, where the local gangs and mafias were a bit more stable.